ok so this is one field that i have never looked into and know nothing about. i have always been about performance and never took a look into the creature comforts before.

i want to do a very nice setup in my car, nice speakers quality and crispness i dont want bass, well a little bit but im just not into that. something to replace the speakers in there original spots.

also a new head unit that will work with the car. and look kinda OEM or at least flow with the interior (am i asking to much?) is there anything out there that has a built in hard drive so i can load it up with songs instead of having cds or a aux in jack? maybe a usb slot for a flash drive.

can some one with experience help me out.

 

You're out of luck with the head unit- other electronics run through the head. I have seen posts in which guys have installed new head units in the glove box and abandoned the stereo part of the factory unit, but it doesn't sound like that's what you want.

Easiest thing to do and the biggest bang for your buck is to replace the speakers as I did. The factory speakers really are junk. I replaced the fronts with infinity kappas and the rears on my convertible with 6 inch low profile woofers. It made a huge difference and wasn't that bad to do, although you have to fabricate a mounting plate- the factory mounts are oddly shaped and sized. I thought about replacing the non-tweeter pillar covers with ones that house tweeters, but in the end didn't. I'm glad I didn't too as the factory position works well for the kappas.

 

well this stinks guess ill do what you said maybe i can through in a small amp in while im at it. but i will keep looking first though to see if there is something, because i have seen other head units in that center console before there's a whole thread on mini2 but just shows pics not if they work with anything or what was involved with installing them.

http://www.mini2.com/forum/first-gen...t-gallery.html

 

Uuummmm.......NO. Sorry but this info is false at least up to 07 for the hard top and 08 and below for the cabrio. The R56, on the other hand, is a different animal all together.

If you want to use the SW controls you need an adapter. But the head unit is straight forward. UNLESS you have the HK stereo then their's a lot of things to look at. Just search this forum and do a lot of reading all the info you are looking for is here.

OGF

 

Oldgamefreak is right - I missed that your mini was an 02. Apologies.

 

Yeah, swapping a new HU into the R50/53 is easily done. The steering wheel control adapter is around $120, they didn't have any in stock and I haven't had time to go back yet... I do miss those wheel controls.

I had a JVC unit in my car, the colors in the display and backlighting could be set to any color of the rainbow. The shop set it up to exactly match the orange interior lighting, so it looked really great! It had USB front and rear, so you could put a 64GB stick in the back full of music and you'd never have to see it poking out of the front.

Unfortunately they were unable to get it tuned quite right, the audiophile shop owner wasn't quite satisfied with the sound, so he wasn't happy sending me home with it. He gave me a free upgrade to a "better" unit, which lacks the lighting options.

I'm not sure what the model number was, but since JVC is a bit on the cheaper end of head unit brands, this can't be a rare feature. Lots of head units now come without CD drives, just bluetooth/USB/AUX/etc, a nice clean look IMO.


You say you're not into loud booming bass, but a small sub will still help with that crisp sound you're looking for. I'm not an expert on this stuff, but the way it was explained to me is, when the speakers aren't trying to push out the low frequencies of the bass, because the subwoofer is handling them, the sounds they're designed to make are going to sound a lot better.

I just have a 10" sub (which is bigger than I need, and takes up too much boot space, in hindsight.) an amp to power the sub, and a head unit... the stereo sounds 10x better than stock. Speakers are next if I decide to change anything else.

Good luck!

 

I have an alpine I took out of my Mini that is made strictly for using an iPod. No cd slot, etc.

The new alpine I have you can set it up like an EQ. I have the alpine, with OEM speakers and an Infiniti bass link sub. The 4 speakers are all set at high pass (no bass) and I can play it LOOOOOOUD with zero distortion.

...I also do stereo installs for a living.

 

In order to do a head unit swap, you need to get a wiring harness from http://www.newministuff.com/. Specify which stereo brand you have; the harness will include a small module that adapts the MFSW functions. The issue I had was the harness went from a MINI connection to a MINI connection for the Alpine version. I ended up splicing in the harness that came with the head unit. If you have to splice in, use this diagram: http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/6...upinoutzi4.jpg.

Aside from that, all you will need to do is swap out the speakers (provided you do not have the HK amp setup). The rear speakers are 6x9"; easy swap. The front speakers are 5" speakers attached to a plastic ring spacer. In my case, the speakers were ripped off the rings, and new ones were screwed to it. Otherwise, you will fight getting speakers to fit the size of the actual door hole (roughly 6" I think).

Beyond that, you're at the mercy of the new unit. AUX control will be whatever it offers, as well as CD changer controls. I can attest the Alpine aftermarket unit does not mesh up with the Alpine OEM wiring in the MINI. All of it had to be replaced.

You can reference this thread for more info on what I went through: https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...gh-volume.html.

 

I replaced my speakers, and added an amp to my R57. all purchased from newministuff.com I am in the process of adding a small subwoofer, but have not decided on specifics.